Thursday, April 30, 2009

JBoss AS users have always asked why JBoss does not have an admin console. Personally, i have always liked working directly on the configuration files without needing any web application or any other tool for doing the same. That's because i like spending more and more time on the AS. But for users who want to just get things done without having to worry about how it is done or which file gets placed where and want to manage the deployments through a web application, a decent admin console was always a neccessity. Its good news now for all JBoss AS users - starting 5.1.0.CR1 version, JBoss AS now has an excellent admin console!

I decided to give it a try, during this weekend, to see what features it provides. This article is just to give you some idea about what the admin-console has. The best place to look for all other details and feature list of the admin-console, is the Embedded Jopr project page. So here's an account of what i found about the admin-console.

The admin console is available by default in the "default" and "all" server configurations. The application is available as a WAR file "admin-console.war" in the deploy folder of these configurations. You can access the admin-console at the following URL http://localhost:8080/admin-console. By default, the username for the application is "admin" and the password is "admin".

Once you login to the admin-console, you will notice a list of menu items on the left hand side of the screen. The right hand side of the screen is a multi-tabbed details page. So let's click on the "Applications" menu item on the left hand side menu. This shows a list of all applications on the server. Each of these applications is categorized based on the type of the application. Some of the categories are : EJB2.x application, EJB3.x application, WAR, EAR, MC beans. There's also Embedded WARs - these are WAR files which are deployed within an EAR file. Apart from applications, the admin-console also displays resources like JMS factories, JMS destinations (queues/topics), datasources. For each of these applications and resources, the admin-console shows the status (UP/DOWN) of those applications/resources. You can delete existing resources or applications by clicking on the "Delete" button on the details page.

The admin-console allows you to deploy new applications (WAR, EAR etc...) and also add new resources. So let's see how to deploy an EAR file. On the left hand side menu, click on the Enterprise Application (EARs) link under the Applications. Then on the details page, you will notice a "Add a new resource" button. Click on it. Use the Browse button to select the EAR you want to deploy. This page also gives you an option to deploy the EAR either as an archive or in a exploded format. Select appropriate option and click Continue. That's it, if the application is deployed successfully, you will see an appropriate message and also the status of the application will be shown as "UP". For all those who want to deploy applications in the traditional way (copying to deploy folder), you can still do it. The admin-console dynamically updates it list of deployed applications and on the next refresh, you will notice your application being listed.

As i mentioned earlier, the details page is a multi-tabbed page. It has a Metrics tab, Control tab, Configuration tab etc... So let's see what the "Control" tab can be used for. Select the Enterprise Application link (from the left hand menu) and drill down to the application of your choice. Then click on the "Control" tab. You will notice options to "Start", "Stop" and "Restart" the application. The other tabs like "Configuration", "Metrics" show many details about the selected application or resource.

Overall, the admin-console is a great addition to JBoss AS and provides that you expect from a decent admin-console. Users who have long waited for such an admin-console in JBoss will finally get what they asked for! So go to the JBossAS download page and get the latest 5.1.0.CR1 version and start playing with the console.

As always, if you have any suggestions or issues to report, feel free to do so in the Embedded Jopr forum.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I thought i will blog this, since i have been seeing many of the community members looking for some documentation or tutorials for EJB3 on JBoss. Obviously, for anyone who's trying to learn a new technology, the best place to start will be the tutorials. Many of you might be already aware that the new JBossAS-5.x series have been released to the community. Just recently we uploaded a completely new set of EJB3 tutorials and reference documentation targeted for JBossAS-5. These tutorials and reference documentation is available here. The earlier set of tutorials which are targeted for AS-4.x are available here.

The new set of tutorials have been modified to work against AS5. The changes mainly include changes to deployment descriptors or any JBoss specific EJB3 features. The complete source code for the tutorials is available for download at the same URL.

The important point to note is that these tutorials will be maintained to work against the latest release of EJB3 plugin. So what is EJB3 plugin? JBossAS-5 ships with EJB3 support by default. As you all know, the JBoss EJB3 project and the JBoss AS project are maintained separately and as such have their own release cycles. So what happens if we introduced something new in EJB3 or do a major bug fix for the community in EJB3 project? How do we make it available to the community who use EJB3 support provided by AS5? That's where the EJB3 plugin comes in picture. The EJB3 plugin provides a mechanism where you can patch newer versions of EJB3 into AS5. This way, if there are any major bug fixes or enhancements you are waiting for from the EJB3 community, then you can use the EJB3 plugin to patch it in AS5.

The next question would be, when and where do i get the EJB3 plugin for the AS. EJB3 project has come up with a release cycle where, every 2nd and 4th Friday of the month there will be a EJB3 release. These releases are downloadable at the JBoss EJB3 download page . So how do you use this plugin against the AS? It's pretty simple. All you need is:

- JBossAS-5 installation- Ant 1.7

Download the plugin which is nothing but a jar file and run the following command

Note that jboss-ejb3-plugin-x.x.x-installer.jar is the name of the jar file you downloaded.

So that gives you an idea about what the plugin is. Coming back to the EJB3 tutorials, I mentioned earlier that these tutorials are maintained to work against the latest release of EJB3 plugin. What this means is, you won't find a tutorial in a broken state (tutorials that are no longer running). The tutorials are tested against every release of the EJB3 plugin. So if something in the tutorials breaks, then that's fixed at the right place before they are released to the community.

If anyone has any suggestions or questions about the tutorials or the EJB3 docs, feel free to start a discussion in the JBoss EJB3 forum